


Fall Of Icarus

by quingigillion (cartouche)



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Its all poetic though, Mutilation, Scars, Torture, Violence, Where Dirk is literally Icarus, Wing AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 14:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9823814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartouche/pseuds/quingigillion
Summary: Higher still and higherFrom the earth thou springestLike a cloud of fire;The blue deep thou wingest,And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.They cage him in concrete. A lightbulb flickers.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this hurt  
> AU where dirk was born with wings as well as psychic powers  
> warnings for violence, torture, mutilation, blood etc.  
> a very dark project blackwing

They come for him when he’s young, vulnerable. Steal him away in the night, with a crackle of radio static and silenced gunshots, leave his mother a collapsed pile of limbs and cloth, cooling. He watches the blood seep out of her, lifeless, and tries to scream. 

They won't let him. 

They lock him away, cage him in a concrete box, grey on grey on grey. It’s cold and dull and he grasps desperately at the wispy memories of what the sun once looked like, how the grass would feel beneath his feet. A lightbulb flickers.

They slap him when he cries, hot tears that splash miserably at his cheeks. They slap him when he can’t see the drawing, doesn’t know what the card is, can’t quite make out the words being spoken in the room down the hallway. Sometimes they pluck gilded feathers out of him in searing spikes of pain that leave him slumped and broken. His wings wither and wilt, and he can’t remember his mother’s face. 

Time passes and he doesn’t feel it. The universe abandons him. 

Soon they’re too big to stretch out properly, and they drape heavy at his side. His mother’s airy voice fades, replaced by harsh commands and sterile hands that push and prod and poke. The bed is too narrow, wire framed and painful. It provides a useless hiding place when they come for him again, and drag him out, kicking and screaming. He fights but they're always too strong. A needle presses sharp into his arm, unforgiving. He sinks into sedation but they won't let him dream. 

Time passes. A lightbulb flickers. 

He’s older, and now they strap him down, let currents of cruel electricity rip through his nerves when he still can’t see what card to choose. The gown scratches at his skin, sandpaper, raw, and he drifts, foggy and lost, wandering dreamlike through misty fields at dusk. They don’t let him escape, retreat, not even into his own head. The wings wrap around him, tight fortress walls, but there’s no solace there, no safety to be found, no glimmer of hope. 

Time passes.

Sometimes he tears at them, screaming, watches oozing blood drip thickly, staining them, red on gold. They'll always make him different, hunted, outcast, shunned. They got him caught in the first place. He tries to blame them, as he slumps into the corner, exhausted. A feather twists in the air, glinting as it floats down, slowly, mesmerising, to join the others on the floor. They’ve wilted, dull and crumbling by the time they throw the door open, and he’s limp against the leather that binds him to the cold metal table. Face down, like an animal. A pariah. 

He knows his wings will never see the sky again. 

Distantly a saw buzzes, loud, like an insect, and he thinks he can faintly recall trees and fields and clouds. Splashing in the stream near the cottage, laughing as his mother wrapped him softly into a towel. When he wakes up, there is pain. Excruciating, white hot, and he writhes, throat hoarse. They’re gone. No heavy comforting weight, no soft rustle, crinkle of feathers, no twitch of muscles yearning to fly, to escape.  He bleeds for weeks, open wounds that refuse to close on his back, gaping open as if waiting for them to return. He cries until there are no tears left in him. The bandages stick to scabs and sores. He's barely human, curled up against the stone floor, thin and pale, waiting patiently for oblivion.

They’re gone. Time passes. 

Todd asks him one day, when he sees a glimpse of the angry, knotted scars, raised and deep pink. An ashy part of him burnt out long ago aches quietly, and he thinks, for a moment, that he can feel them rise and stretch, spread against a cool breeze. The smile hurts to put on.

‘Look, about this teleporting llama, I really think, we ought to go and interview it’s friends. Llamas, after all, can be very perceptive Todd.’


End file.
